Climate has been changing for the last four billion years. Long-term weather forecasts are anyone’s guess

On Sunday, January 5, I went out mid-morning to get a shot of fresh air — and it was fresh. The mercury thermometer on the garage stops at 40 below, which we all understand. The mercury was nearly curled up in the bottom: -37 C. Much of Canada and the northern U.S. has experienced a few good old 1950s style winters lately. The No. 1 news item is the extreme and unusual cold. To a 73-year-old it is not that unusual.

So, it seemed to be the right time for me to take another crack at global warming. Let it be known I have my farm hat on — I have no academic expertise in climate science.

The long-term view

My Christmas holiday reading this year included a book entitled Climate Through the Ages by C.E.P. Brooks, a prominent British meteorologist.

Brooks wrote about the several glacial and inter-glacial periods and the many possible reasons why they occurred. Of carbon dioxide, he had this to say: “Carbon dioxide can never have been an important factor in climatic variations.”

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Brooks tabulated numbers of “great storms, floods, heavy rain or wet summers” in Europe for successive 50 year time periods. From AD 1000 to 1500 there were as many as 28 such events in a 50-year period.

Brooks’ book was published in London in 1926. It was book No. 27,923 acquired by the University of Saskatchewan library. We still need libraries. I make great use of internet access to information, but stumbled on this book while looking for similar titles.

It appears that global warming actually ended about the turn of the century. The Global Warmers are making excuses and telling us it is a pause in an uphill trend. One thing that puzzles me: What thermometers do they average to come up with a “global” average temperature? I have asked several and have yet to receive an answer.

But, much of the research agenda is still driven by “mitigating” global warming. Most research proposals stand a much better chance of funding if they include the magic words.

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One thing we can all agree on — droughts will return. Tree ring counters warn us that past droughts have made the 1930s look like a cakewalk. We also have a lot of research on “mitigating” drought. The only serious way I know to mitigate drought is to irrigate.

If we in Saskatchewan are worried about future droughts — and we should be —then irrigation projects from Lake Diefenbaker should be built NOW. A wet cycle is when irrigation should be built so it is available for the drought when it comes.

The one that really makes me angry is the business of tying a bag on both ends of a cow to see how much gas they expel. What in the name of common sense do they think the millions of buffalo did?

The data

It is a well-established fact that any global warming that has taken place on the Canadian Prairies happened only in the months of January to March. July, if anything has been cooler. We grow crops in the summer. In fact we have cool July to credit for at least part of bumper canola crops in recent years. The graphs of Swift Current data from 1886 to 2007 were presented in this column in February 2010. They clearly show January to March as the months that drive the annual average higher or lower over time. So, when a yearly average is computed it is skewed by the much bigger range of winter temperatures.

Click image for full view

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I recently stumbled on a 1964 report of the then Water Studies Institute at the University of Saskatchewan. They analyzed historical temperature data from four Saskatchewan stations. They also reported that the spread between high and low for January (about 5 C) was much more than the spread between high and low in July (about 1 C). The data from the four stations is shown in Figure 1.

From the time the sod was broken to the Second World War there was a general increase in temperatures, followed by a sharp decrease in the cold and wet 1950s. As late as 1977 the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists had the theme “Dealing with a Colder Climate.”

The Swift Current 10-year moving average for mean annual temperature (Figure 2) shows where we are at now. It shows the sharp temperature increase through 70s and 80s and more or less flat since mid 90s.

So, why is the world in such a flap? Climate has been changing for 4 billion years. To Mother Nature 100 years is but a flick of the eyelash. I think mankind flatters ourselves greatly when we think we have much influence.

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The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is much more consistent and seems to carry on. Guess what our major plant nutrient is? Carbon. And we access it as CO2 from the atmosphere. How much of our huge 2013 crop is credited to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere?

Forecasts: Kudos to Environment Canada

Let us end on an upbeat note. As recently as 10 years ago weather forecasts were not taken too seriously. But, I am sure many readers have noticed the improvement in recent years. Farmers now plan the next few days based on the forecast — particularly temperature. Rain/snow is harder but the forecast of general pattern of precipitation is very much improved.

This COLD winter the temperature forecasts have been very close as much as five days out. But, please do not try to tell me that long-term predictions are anything more than a crap shoot.

Editor’s note: While of course Les Henry is correct, we still need libraries, the full text of C.E.P. Brooks’ book “Climate Through the Ages” can be read online at home for free at www.archive.org. At that site, search for “Climate Throuch the ages” — (yes, search with “through” misspelled to find it quickly.)

Wow. Just wow. Your ignorance is breathtaking. Local weather is not global weather. Neither is European weather. And global warming was renamed global climate change to help old feebs understand that higher global averages can also mean colder weather at times. It’s about destabilization. And yes, global climate change has been happening for eons. So have mass extinctions. The people with money at stake, big agribusiness, acknowledges the reality and is preparing. But go ahead and stick your head in the sand. You probably don’t have much longer to do that anyway.

Patrick Roycroft

Wow, I appreciate that you start this off by admitting you have no academic credentials, but it really seems like you did no research at all and are trying to push an agenda.

You start out your research with a book that was originally published in 1926. Do you really think there has been no improvement in our ability to get data in the last 90 years? His claims are based on the fact that water vapor in the atmosphere absorbs C02. This has long since been shown to increase the opacity of the atmosphere and leads to global warming.

You claim no one has ever been able to answer your question of how we get an average global temperature. A quick Google search could have answered this for you. The NOAA takes live readings from over 1500 surface temperature stations spread out all over the globe. We have also been using infrared satellites to measure global temperature for about 30 years.

You laugh at the idea that cows can contribute to global warming by pointing out there were buffalo before cows…. The best estimates put the buffalo population peak at 30-60 million. The number of cattle and bison on the planet today is about 1.5 billion. Feed lots mean we can cram an awful lot of cows in a small place.

You use some temp readings from a very small local area, not the best way to measure world wide climate for sure. The most recent IPCC assessment looked at over 9,200 peer reviewed articles. Don’t you think that is a much more powerful way to get data about the entire world?

Finally you point out that plants eat C02, so more is a good thing? Right? Well, humans breath 02, but a high enough concentration of 02 will kill us. More is not always a good thing, that is a gross over simplification. Plants require water, c02, and 02, in very specific quantities. Ever tried over watering a plant? And of course, weeds also breath C02….

Sorry to come across like a jerk, but articles like this have zero scientific basis, and spreading misinformation hurts society as a whole. Even ten minutes of research with an open mind might have changed your view on this topic. There’s a lot of lies spread about agriculture, for instance the anti-GMO people like to ignore that fact that the green revolution has saved over a billion human lives, but the scientific consensus on climate change is getting stronger every single year.

http://www.durangobill.com Bill Butler

The reason that the phrase “Global Warming Deniers” is used is that the “Deniers” ignore reality and fabricate stories that are not true.

For example, the statement
“It appears that global warming actually ended about the turn of the century.”
is NOT true.

Sea level continues to rise due to thermal expansion and glacial melting. The current rate of sea level rise has quadrupled since the 1870 to 1924 period.
Columbia Universityhttp://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/SeaLevel/

Denial is one of the first stages of a disease, this disease being ignorance. Tell that to your kids when they ask why mom and dad and grandma and grandpa have left them such a mess. Greenhouse gasses and rising costs. I think Jim Morrison said it worst…”I m gonna have my kicks before this whole s$&%house goes up in flames. Tell that to your grandkids.

don

The 3rd coldest winter in the last 100 years. Les has it bang on. The true sign of great scientist is when everyone calls him a heretic. Remember now the earth is flat.

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